Josef Kačírek

„So you meet guys there who also know they are screwed for the next two years, but they're all still trying to cope with it by making fun of it, that it won't be so bad, but they'll just back you into a corner. They'll drag you into the showers, you hand over your civilian identity, get the pants and other things. You go get a haircut where they shave you bald, because you just need to be transformed into a nonhuman. They'll drag you into the shower. I've experienced it, for example, except that there was a huge scream, the veterans were just yelling at us, so while shaving, some moron kicked me in the head with a Canadian. And they'll just let you know... they downright enjoyed people who came to the military with long hair, I wasn't the only one coming in with long hair. It’s just that this system will very quickly start pushing you into the messy belief that you're the subhuman here and here are the older soldiers, and now it's just going to be tough and get ready for the worst. One was ... it reminded me of watching movies of people getting out of a transport and coming to Auschwitz and there they get screamed at and there are dogs that would push them somewhere. Of course, it wasn’t as crazy as in Auschwitz, but to make you feel any less human right at the beginning was the disgusting thing about it.“

„It just so happened that suddenly we were given a completely nonsensical ban, because there was never a fight, nothing ever broke, people were happy to have a place to go to. And what's more, there was music when we played some kind of weird hard rock, or if it was hard rock at all, and the people from Radotín played their jazz fusions. It was just such a weird encounter of people, everyone came from different places and we actually enjoyed being able to be somewhere around music and it was very calm. When the ban came they wouldn't even give you anything in writing, they would just say, 'Sorry, you just won't play,' so I was quite upset, and I thought, 'Like, where's the problem?'. I went to the municipal office and there they told me it was just not happening, that it was socially whatever. I said, "Sorry, but there's just nothing wrong here." So I picked up my phone and made an appointment at the district committee or district office. There I got myself a cultural coordinator and made an appointment with her. When I arrived there, she asked what my deal was. I said we had a problem at Zbraslav with those parties, and she asked what I wanted. So I said I needed a “bumážka” (a permit) that would state that everything was fine, but I didn't want her to give me a paper but rather for her to come look at the place, to see what it looks like, what we do there, whether it was socially bad or whatever, but so she could see it with her own eyes. And that I went to see her because I knew what it was like in that hierarchy. That someone at the local level just thinks of something and starts playing some kind of culture warden, but the district committee or district office has more power, and if she could just come look at it. And she came. She came, had wine there, and made friends with Martin Korda. He was sixteen at the time. They spent the evening together, fine, in all honesty. And she heard it all, saw how people behaved there, and we got a stamp that we were safe and that was it. And so we could play again for a while.“